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What's New In Ancient Gotham?

Article describing archaeological finds in Gotham City During Less Than Zero.

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What’s New In Ancient Gotham?
by Richard Tully

IT HASBEEN AN IMPORTANTWEEKFOR GOTHAM’S ARCHAEOLOGICALSOCIETY. FOLLOWINGYEARS OF intensive field research the Society has produced stunning findings pointing to Gotham’s ancient history as the latest clue in a centuries long archaeological and anthropological mystery. Begun in 2002 following the Great Earthquake, the Society’s latest exhibition was cosponsored by Wayne Enterprises and ProtoCorp for the purposes of investigating new grounds forced up and exhumed as a result of the Earthquake. “They were expecting it would place them around Seventeenth Century Gotham, that we’d be able to find artifacts of the city’s first settlers, perhaps artifacts left behind by the indigenous peoples of the time; the purpose of the dig was of course to ‘rediscover’ Gotham in light of the post Earthquake society, but no one ever thought the dig would take us back this far, that’s when they called me in,” says Dr. Will Herzog. How far back exactly?

“a shift of Copernican magnitude…”

“Further back then I would want to estimate. Carbon-dating suggests 40,000 years easily, but that timeframe is at odds with most modern theories of early civilization. What we have here is clearly indicative of Neolithic identify, but that early?” Herzog, Department Chair of Anthropology and Classics Studies at Gotham University, explains the revolutionary findings as presenting, “a shift of Copernican magnitude in the study of early humans. There have been very similar findings in Argentina, Macedonia, New Zealand, McMurdo Station, Antarctica, and now Gotham, all regions too remote for migration to have played any role. We’re talking use of the same materials, similar visual design, a comparable language script, all at relatively the same point some 40,000 years ago. We’re looking at evidence of the proto-language, the proto-culture, similar social forms occurring at remote regions at the earliest point in civilization known.” How does Gotham fit into the picture then? “Gotham’s findings represent the largest collection of samples to date and the most telling,” says Herzog. “They attempt to complete a picture. Previous findings have pointed to religion as the most obvious source of influence in the society of this people. Here below Gotham we’ve uncovered many fragments of what we believe to be an idol of their god, or at least their primary god, much of it is still unclear, but we’re hoping for Gotham’s findings to resolve that.” So what did the citizens of Ancient Gotham worship? “It’s hard to tell. We haven’t had any luck deciphering their script, but certain phrases reoccur and its likely one of those is the name of their primary god. What’s unique is that the idols and other depictions we’ve seen reveal we are not in his image as many other religions would have us believe. In fact, its unclear to what extent these people deemed these beings divine. Much of what we’ve seen suggests they identified with these beings as ‘celestial’ and ‘other.’ The Gotham Archaeological Society will debut its findings in the coming months at Gotham’s Museum of Natural History. The exhibit shall open privately and is sure to attract visitors from Universities and field professionals abroad. The exhibit will open to the public some weeks later.

Richard Tully is….(Jon here…"you can check your hardcopy version for the exact details but Tully’s bio basically says he’s a native Metropolitan and that he lives in the New Gotham Arts District with his wife Suzanne. He covers the Gotham Arts scene at a personal blog).